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Black Friday is a super time to take advantage of bargains in household items and consumer electronics. But what about bargains for web designers?

As it turns out, web designers haven’t been left out of the picture. You can see from this selection of design aids, UI kits, stock photos, and WP themes. There is, in fact, something here for just about everyone.

The driving force behind Black Friday is to get shoppers into the stores. It’s not much different with online stores. But web designers often benefit by looking where they haven’t looked before.

Especially when bargains on high-quality products are the rule, as is the case with these Black Friday specials.

ThemeFuse has a selection of over 30 high-quality WordPress themes to choose from. On Black Friday only, any of these themes can be yours at a 40% discount. These themes are exactly what designers and developers look for when they are called upon to create original websites for their clients; and called upon to do so on short notice.

These themes cover all the common website types, including presentation websites, blogs, e-commerce websites, and portfolios. Theme topics range from business, children, and automotive, to travel, food, health & beauty and everything in between. Their flagship theme is called The Core, a multi-purpose WP theme that comes with more than 20 demos already created that can be imported with 1 click.

You can test drive any of these WP themes before you purchase. This includes the Black Friday discounts. Just be sure to make the purchases you want before the deadline has passed. You’ll like what you see in the original and creative theme designs, and you’ll appreciate how easy they are to use.

Millions of stock photos and videos at a 50% discount may be difficult to imagine, but that is what Dreamstime is offering on Black Friday, and through Cyber Monday. Dreamstime’s inventory is highly organized.

The Smart Advanced Search system guarantees that it won’t take you any time at all to drill down to your favorite subcategories and topics, and pick out a few choice images at a bargain price. You have 20,000 RF images that you can download for free along the way.

Dreamstime draws upon professional contributors who add thousands of fresh files every day. Once you’ve sampled what this stock photo resource offers, you’ll be tempted to become a regular customer.

You can be assured that quality will never be an issue, since Dreamstime has been a media provider to 95% of the Fortune 500 companies.

Proto.io is regarded throughout the web design community as an industry-leading prototyping platform for designers representing all experience levels.

Black Friday through December 2 has been set aside as an opportunity for you to purchase an annual subscription to this premium design tool at a 30% discount. The promo code is BLACKFRIDAY2016. This Black Friday special is available to both new and existing customers.

Design teams and freelancers alike work with Proto.io to enhance the workflows of their design processes from the wireframe and mockup phases through to user testing their high-fidelity, interactive prototypes. Proto.io is extremely easy to use. No coding skills or special technical skills are required on your part.

Here is your chance to purchase a premium design tool at a special Black Friday price. Start with a free trial and then upgrade using their promo code until December 2.

Web designers have for a long time looked upon Visual Hierarchy as a source for purchasing high quality design tools. On Black Friday, you can join many of these same designers in choosing VH’s top selling products and other useful items at up to 60% off the regular price!

VH is also a marketplace where web designers and developers can sell their own products, so you are always assured of finding items that are not found anywhere else. Black Friday is your chance to purchase anything from UI Kits to fonts and mockups at bargain prices.

Themify is celebrating Black Friday through Cyber Monday in a big way. Promo code BLACKFRIDAY opens the door to a 50% discount on all Club memberships, WordPress themes, and plugins. There will also be a drawing in which 10 Master Club memberships will be given away for free.

Although the 50% discount does not apply, if you elect to join the Lifetime Master Club, with all its benefits, you can do so for only $249; a savings of $150. Use promo code BLACKFRIDAYLIFE to take advantage of this special offer.

Yep, these are some great deals!

There are Black Friday bargains here for new and old customers alike. This is an excellent chance for you to buy high-quality stock photos or other media items at half price. Or quality WordPress themes or website theme templates at large discounts.

If any of the businesses offering these promotions are new to you, give them a closer look. You might just decide to opt for something newer and better that what you’re using now; and at a bargain price.

A team leader’s role is to take a group of people who have diverse yet complementary skills, and variable degrees of experience, and mold them into a cohesive team. And make them work together toward a common objective.

These same skills that can do so much when given proper direction can just as easily undermine the chances of a project’s success. If that direction is not there.

A good choice of project management and collaboration tools can play an important, and even a key role.

The right tools can make workflow proceed smoothly. Make the design process as a whole more transparent, and encourage collaboration among team members.

Freelancers can also benefit by having the right project or task management tools on hand.

Even the best tools can’t do everything. Team leaders need to get their teams working together with a common purpose in mind. Following these guidelines will help make that happen.

1) Constantly clarify team member roles. A lack of clarity or overlapping roles can only lead to confusion, oversights, and a duplication of effort.

2) Explicitly state responsibilities. Making the entire team, or even a small group, responsible for an action seldom works. Define and assign responsibilities at the individual level.

3) Identify who handles each decision. This can be done at an individual or on a group basis. In the latter case, how a decision is to be reached must be made clear.

Sharing ideas without interrupting your workflow should not be complicated. This is where Wake shines. An example: Capture ideas or information in your notebook or on your whiteboard with Wake’s iPhone app, and share it with others. Instantly. The iPhone app also allows you to stay up-to-date on project happenings when you’re away from the office or on the go.

You can also upload and share screenshots, sketches, etc., without having to interrupt or leave your Illustrator, Sketch, or Photoshop session. If you want to share animations or videos of your prototypes – it’s no problem.

Wake makes the design process more transparent for all parties concerned. You can share information publicly, or share it privately to a selected few. You can use Wake to show everyone what everyone is working on.

Sign up for a free 30-day trial and see if Wake is the right solution for you or for your team. Several plans are available, ranging from a $22/month starter plan, to a Pro Custom plan for heavy users.

InVision’s prototyping, collaboration, and workflow capabilities are integrated within a single platform. This design-driven project management platform makes it possible for design teams and freelancers alike to prototype, share, review and modify, and user test their mobile and web products.

With InVision, you can upload a design file, and add animations, gestures, and transformations to create a high-fidelity, interactive prototype within 5 minutes. InVision also simplifies your feedback process by allowing team members and stakeholders to seamlessly comment on your designs in real time.

You can manage project screens and statuses from a single location, and notify team members when changes in status have occurred.

2 million designers have used InVision, ranging from freelancers and small design agencies, to large companies like General Motors, Nike, and Apple. Ask for the free trial that allows you to work with a single prototype, while you learn more about InVision’s features and functions. Read the rest of this entry »

Best of Themes is a showcase website where you can browse thousands of free and paid themes quickly, so you can focus what matters. We had always the problem of finding a matching theme to our product. The current process is amazingly time consuming and consists of going to each theme provider, clicking on each theme and checking the demos; mind you only themeforest has 8000 themes only for wordpress. One can do probably 20-30 trials before giving up and picking up the most common ones.

So, to solve the problem they made this platform, a curated collection of free and commercial themes added daily, with a screenshot of their most important pages together for both mobile and desktop to quickly browse through. Today we have 936 Themes, 14548 pages indexed, and total of 16443 screenshots on the platform.

If you are reading this article, you most likely have worked with a tech company or startup. You’ve noticed that this niche has its own rules. And you probably had to answer some hard questions. What’s the audience’s main treat? What’s the suited design style for tech clients? Do web design trends matter in this domain?

We gathered some answers to those questions that will help you in the future. We’ve also analyzed ten tech related pre-built websites. Using them will save you valuable time.

When Designing for Tech Companies, Following Current Trends is Essential

The educated Internet user will quickly decide if your website is hot or not. Trends are not only a matter of fashion, but using them transmits a message of freshness and coolness. Here are some of the most important trends that you should follow when designing for tech companies:

– Use Flat Icons – Drop the shadows, skip the gradients, and avoid the clever special effects. In other words, go “all Apple”. It’s the best way to engage your tech client’s clients – simple is best.

When working on a tech-related website, it’s all about fine touches.

– Use Bold Colors. You may have your favorite color schemes, but be prepared to let them go. Bold colors are hot for these types of websites. Look for color combinations that are fresh, dynamic, but not too noisy.

– Work on Your Own Data Visualization. Using data-driven elements needs to be your goal. Tech clients feel a need to communicate various types of data on their website. With data driven elements you can work on your own visualization schemes and not those that involve working with other software.

– Typography. in-browser fonts that are built for all screens, to be precise. Needless to say, an expressive, typography font should be delivered to all types of screens. Read the rest of this entry »

First of all, how exactly do you intend to present your design, or elements of it, to others, or test the UX? With a prototype of course, but there are also wireframes and mockups to consider. All three serve a purpose, but they are not one and the same. The problem is, the names are used often incorrectly.

So, let’s set things straight so you’ll know what to try and buy.

A wireframe is a low-fidelity depiction of a design. A wireframe can say a lot about a design, but it is a static model. A wireframe cannot simulate a product’s look and feel.

A mockup is one step up. A mockup typically provides much more information than a wireframe. Although interactive elements can be embedded in a mockup, it is a static representation. As such, a mockup is suitable for seeking feedback, but not for UI testing.

A prototype is dynamic. A prototype will not only simulate the proposed end product, or certain functions of it. It will simulate the look and feel of the proposed design, and serve as a platform for usability testing.

Most designers create their prototypes in a three-step process.

1) They sketch out page flows. These show how a user might navigate the site or application.

2) They produce low-fidelity versions of each page which are individually tested for usability.

3) From lessons learned from testing, the high-fidelity, interactive prototype is created.

One of the following prototyping aids should be just the right solution for you.

InVision enablesdesigners, developers and their teams to produce high-fidelity prototypes to review, refine, and user test their web and mobile product designs, all without requiring a single line of code.

This prototyping and collaboration platform is highly recommended by Forbes, who has designated InVision as one of the premier cloud companies in the world. InVision’s always-on platform turns static designs into interactive prototypes, speeding up the collaboration and feedback process, saving you valuable time and money.

The project management tools you need to share information while maintaining version control are there as well. Pixel-perfect prototypes, that have the look and feel of the final app or website you’re envisioning, can be built with ease. You can also conduct an unlimited number of usability tests with real users at no charge.

Sign up for a free trial today, and you’ll discover why over 2 million users have adopted this platform. InVision is driving design for some of the world’s smartest companies, including Twitter, Shopify, and LinkedIn. Now is your chance to design better, smarter products more quickly.

Pidoco is easy to learn and easy to use. It’s a nice solution for a team that wants to get rolling quickly. If click-through wireframes are what you need, or even a sketch, or a low-fi prototype, this tool gets it done, but where it really shines lies in the creation of fully-interactive UX prototypes.

Pidoco’s smart template feature offers a building block approach that allows your prototyping activity to move along at a rapid rate. Exports and specs is another useful feature. You can create specification documents to give to your team, or to your client for signoff, with the click of a button, and you can export your prototypes as PNG or vector files, or even as HTML.

Whether it’s for a website or an app, Pidoco can definitely speed up your design process and workflow, and deliver better designs at the same time. Read the rest of this entry »

We are excited to bring your attention to the most recent update of Monstroid – a multipurpose WordPress theme packed with premade designs, tools for developers, plugins, and many other awesome features.
We have already featured Monstroid in one of our posts, and even hosted a giveaway. Today you have a unique opportunity to save 40% on this theme – learn the terms of the discount at the end of this post. Right now, we want to introduce you to what’s new in Update 1.1.3 for the owners of Monstroid.

5 New Child Themes to Choose From

In addition to 40+ existing child themes you receive 5 absolutely new designs suitable for a broad range of website topics. What these themes have in common is the professional code, attention to detail and rich functionality powered by numerous original Monstroid plugins. Check out all of them in our overview, or take a closer look at the entire gallery of child themes on the official website.

Hang Gliding

Hang Gliding is an image-rich WordPress theme with a full-width layout and a stick-to-top mega menu. The uppermost part of its homepage includes a large slider with a creative, minimalist navigation bar. The homepage itself is divided into separate content blocks, each serving its own specific purpose. Here you will find nicely designed company service lists illustrated with icons, contact forms, a timeline with the latest events covered on your website, social media buttons, and more. There is also a customizable Google Map, which can be used to indicate the location of your office to the clients.

Arch

Arch is a versatile responsive business WordPress theme created with architecture and real estate companies in mind. It boasts a wide responsive layout composed of flat and image-based content areas enhanced with various visual effects. You can change the color scheme or replace the images to make the design unique. This theme features clean lines, large fonts and buttons, integrated Google Maps and modern ghost buttons. The convenient menu is minimized into a hamburger button, and is supplemented with a back-to-top button. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you often find yourself struggling to find the right graphic asset to complete your projects? How does access to 5000+ highly curated fonts, graphics templates, icons, UI kits and much more for just one low monthly price sound?

Envato Elements promises all this and more. Just launched, it offers top quality handmade items created by a global network of independent designers. Regularly updated to include new content daily and plans to rapidly expand the item categories to match demand. Each item you download is covered by a broad commercial use license giving you peace of mind for client projects.

And if you decide it’s not for you simply cancel your subscription at any time.

Don’t miss your chance at special launch pricing just $29/month for unlimited downloads of all 5000+ items.

Have you ever stopped to look back at what your job was like 10 years ago? It’s common knowledge that web designers’ responsibilities have changed over the years.

In the past, you either needed some serious coding skills to be a website designer, or you had to rely on coding help from others. You needed creative skills as well. That need hasn’t changed. Your creativity is now focused on design and visualization, with a touch of marketing expertise thrown in. You also need to have a basic understanding of how WordPress works.

All this hasn’t made your work any easier. It may in fact be harder. To be competitive, you have to keep up with the the latest design trends and constantly work at improving your design skills.

You have the tools you need, but it’s how you use them that adds value to a project.

Read this article to discover how buying a 0.28$ website, like this one, will be the smartest purchase you’ll make this month.

When you buy a WordPress theme, are you really paying attention to the value for money?

A WordPress theme can be one of the most useful products you can buy to build a website. WordPress themes relieve you of most of the technical aspects of building a website. And you can concentrate on creativity, making smart design choices, and working with your clients.

Most WP themes do this for you, but some contain features you don’t need. Or features you need, but require hours of learning. For efficiency’s sake, you would greatly prefer a WP theme that offers most of what you need, and little or nothing more.

That’s what value for money is all about. Purchasing a product that offers the most in efficiency and effectiveness. In other words, a smart buy. Read the rest of this entry »

Choosing an eCommerce theme puts you on the right track for building a quality online store. But making that choice is only half the battle. The look and feel of your online store is critical. Your eCommerce theme can perform the tasks to make that happen, but you have to tell it what you want done.

What do you need to consider when designing your online store?

Give your store a familiar look. This makes it easier for shoppers to go where they want to go. Krug’s first law of usability puts it nicely – “Don’t make me think.” Don’t make your visitors have to think in order to find their way around your store.

If it’s a priority to find a theme that gets the job done, yet is delightfully easy to work with, XStore is an excellent choice. It is also an excellent choice if you plan to take Krug’s first law of usability to heart. If you spend a few moments browsing their demos, it’s apparent that this theme’s authors have done just that.

That is why the demos have such a familiar look. Familiarity gives your shop a trustworthy, professional appearance, plus your customers don’t have to think. By hovering over one or more of the demos, you should be able to come up with some great ideas for how you want your own store to look.

XStore is responsive, RTL-ready, and Visual Composer compatible. It is also 100% WooCommerce compatible. You’ll like working with its Theme Options feature. It gives you the flexibility to build whatever is on your mind. Support is excellent, and video tutorials are there to assist you with installation and settings management.

Merchandiser is minimalist, fast, and reliable. The exact opposite of an over bloated theme that tends to be loaded down with functionality, bells, and whistles that you have no need for. Merchandiser’s authors follow the principle that simplicity is the ultimate in sophistication – and it shows. Merchandiser is packed with features, but only as many as you need – nothing more.

The Theme Customizer/Visual Composer Drag and Drop Page Builder features combine to create a potent web-building force. Visitors to your online shop will appreciate features like the off-canvas shopping cart and off-canvas quick view, along with the ability to choose how they want to view your products as they shop.

Merchandiser gives you the ability to sell anything online, including digital products, or you can open an affiliate business if you wish. It all happens with simplicity in mind. Read the rest of this entry »